Commercial interests, communities and personal freedom may be affected by the condition and number of roads and highways. Thus, it is very important that the maintenance and construction of roads and highways be performed as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Building and maintaining urban roads and highways and the high speed highways linking urban areas present a particular problem, primarily due to the speed and density of traffic. Various pieces of equipment and traffic control methods have been used to improve the speed, efficiency and safety of highway work
Such equipment may consist of informative signs posted along roadways, portable flashing warning systems or barriers of various kinds which are provided to direct or control the flow of traffic into specific areas or lanes. The last is commonly used and generally may take the form of a series of marking devices such as barrels, either plastic or metal, variously shaped pylons or the typical highway cone-shaped marker.
Generally speaking, these markers, particularly the highway cone, are placed and removed by a number of highway maintenance workers on foot or hanging onto the back of a truck with one hand. The workers involved are exposed to extreme danger because of the speed and density of the traffic. Additionally, the need to rapidly place or remove highway markers or to place such markers over long stretches of highway as on the interstate highway system requires a large number of individual workers.
Prior art somewhat related to these problems and to the general concept of serially depositing or retrieving a plurality of objects includes U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,157,267, 4,193,522 and 4,747,515. U.S. Pat. No. 3,157,267 discloses a roadway signal device retriever; however, the magnetic retriever is for picking up metallic signal devices and does not disclose or suggest a method of depositing the signal devices on a roadway. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,193,522 and 4,747,515 disclose the concept of dispensing markers or elements serially, but the devices in these patents are not directed to the dispensing and retrieving of highway traffic markers.